John Beardsley's development company files Chapter 11

John Beardsley, a longtime Portland developer of historic downtown properties, took his primary company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.

Fountain Village Development reported assets and liabilities between $50 million to $100 million and listed 15 buildings as the company's principal assets. That list includes the New Market Theater Block, the Oregon Pioneer Building and the Blagen building. Here's the full filing. The Portland Business Journal broke the story this morning.

The largest unsecured creditors are: Portland General Electric ($208,000), Service Master ($134,000), Protemp Associates Inc. ($74,000), Salvation Army ($69,000) and Home Hotel ($63,000).

Asked about the bankruptcy filing for the Historic U.S. National Bank Block LLC, Jim Waldon, a Seattle attorney with Lane Powell LLC and a Beardsley's spokesman, told The Oregonian last week: "That doesn't affect SeaPort in the least."

UPDATE: Al Kennedy, Fountain Village's bankruptcy attorney, said this afternoon the company filed on Friday to halt a foreclosure sale this morning on the Jazz de Opus building.

Sam G. Pishue, who owned and operated the old
Jazz de Opus club at Northwest Second Avenue and Couch Street, sold
Beardsley the building for $2.25 million in April 2007. Pishue filed a
default notice claiming Beardsley fell behind on payments required
through their sale contract and owes him $1.6 million. Pishue was scheduled to sell off the building on the Multnomah County Courthouse steps at 10:30 a.m. today. The Chapter 11 filing halted the sale.

Kennedy said Beardsley has negotiated a loan modification with his biggest lender, M&T Real Estate Trust of Buffalo, N.Y., and was having productive talks with another major lender, First Independent Bank of Vancouver. But Pishue, who now lives in California, wasn't willing to deal.